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“Mommy said even if I couldn’t see them, I had to stay in the car no matter what.”
“You’re short like me. Cars don’t always see us.”
“That’s what Mommy said. I stayed in the car because Mommy told me to and watched until my mommy and the police girl were teeny tiny specks.”
“Did you see any water?”
She nodded. “Grandpa takes me swimming there all the time. Mommy says it’s too dan’drous, but Grandpa is with me and he puts on my floaties and a vest.” She turned to Doug. “Orange, like Zuma!”
Cal said, “I know where that is. Give me a map.”
Kara got the map from Ryder in the tactical van. Cal circled a cove about two miles south of the Finch property near San Juan County Park. “Jared—that’s Jamie’s dad—takes Hazel there anytime he’s in town. There’s a shallow area, then this small rocky island about a quarter mile out. There’s also a dock, private but everyone uses it. Jamie said she and her friends would swim out to the rocks when they were teens. It’s freezing in the winter, but in the summer it’s popular. Please find her. Please.”
Doug said, “Hazel, let’s go take a ride, you, me, and your dad, okay?”
“Is she okay?” Cal asked.
“She’s fine,” said Doug. “Everything is normal. Her pupils are a little dilated, but that could be from whatever she was given. The doctor will check her out thoroughly.”
Kara thought back to everything Hazel had said. “Why did you say your mommy was on a boat?”
“Marcy said Mommy took a boat ride and that we had to wait for Daddy to get us.”
“Thank you,” Kara said. “You are very helpful.”
“Like Marshall?”
“Just like Marshall.”
With the information Hazel and Cal gave them, Matt quickly formulated a plan with the help of the sheriff, who knew the area well. The Coast Guard was called in to search the Haro Strait, the major shipping channel west of the island. If Jamie’s boat was unanchored, it could drift into an island or rocks or a ship. If there was a bomb on board, and they had every reason to believe there was, then it might be set to explode at a specific time, or be on a motion sensor like theWater Lily.Hitting rocks or another boat might trigger it. The fear that Jamie must have, knowing that she was floating on a bomb, had to be paralyzing.
Or Marcy could have killed her and dropped her body in the ocean.
Kara didn’t want to think that way, but the thought kept popping in her head.
Matt and Michael were joining the sheriff’s search boat that was at a nearby dock. The sheriff drove up then, motioned for Matt that they were ready.
“I’m going,” Kara said.
Matt stared at her. She knew what he was thinking.
“I have to see this through.” She wasn’t going to beg. She wasn’t going to pull any card she had in her pocket. The reason was simple, even if it wouldn’t make sense if she said it out loud.
Jamie is my responsibility.
What if she had said something different? If she could have talked Marcy out of killing herself? Had Kara done or said something wrong? Kara had to be part of the rescue, if a rescue was to be had.
Matt nodded.
Catherine, Jim, and Ryder were staying at the Finch house until it was cleared by ATF, then Jim would supervise processing the crime scene. Matt, Michael, and Kara piled in the back of the sheriff’s Bronco. John had been quiet.
Matt said, “John, you couldn’t have known.”
“I hired her. She’s my cop.”
“She deceived a lot of people. We don’t know what led her down this path, but she spiraled out of control these last couple of weeks. That’s not on you.”
John didn’t say anything more, and neither did Matt. What else was there to say?
